"Orange County needs a local trade association," says former city Planning Commissioner Jim Fitzpatrick, who is now a marijuana industry consultant and an ARMA board member. The industry needs "standing when interfacing with municipalities." Read More

The Alliance for Responsible Medicinal Access, a pro-medical marijuana PAC and nonprofit trade organization, made its first foray to expand its sway into Orange County last week. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher kicked off the local meeting and mixer Friday by speaking at Costa Mesa City Councilman Gary Monahan’s bar, Skosh Monahan’s. Read More

It's been nearly 20 years since voters made medical marijuana use legal in California with the passage of Proposition 215, and now the state is considering creating an oversight agency to regulate it. The state Assembly is expected this week to consider a bill to create the Governor's Office of Medical Marijuana Regulation. It would work with other state departments to license and regulate dispensaries and oversee everything from cultivation to manufacturing and testing of medical marijuana. Read More

At a mini mall in Otay Mesa last Thursday around noon, two gray-haired women, one limping with a cane, walked into A Green Alternative, San Diego’s first permitted medical-cannabis dispensary. After passing by an armed guard, through a metal detector and checking in with a clerk sitting behind bullet-proof glass, the ladies were ushered by an employee into the main showroom. Read More

San Diego’s leading medical marijuana activist group, Alliance for Responsible Medicinal Access, celebrated its first anniversary this week. City Attorney Jan Goldsmith dropped by the celebration to give his support for the group’s efforts to legitimize the medicinal marijuana industry in San Diego. On this week’s San Diego Explained, VOSD CEO Scott Lewis and NBC 7’s Catherine Garcia explain the progress that the alliance has made in getting the city to be more open to pot shops, and why the police are still raiding many shops every year. Read More

“Is it fair or is not fair? That's business you're always going to have competitors,” said Kimberly Simms an attorney who represents applicants who haven't had a hearing. Restrictions allow 36 dispensaries to operate and she predicts as more licenses are granted unregulated shops will close. She wants to make sure there is safe and equal access for all patients. “Medical marijuana has been around since 1996 and it's not going anywhere,” said Simms. Read More

Outside of the third-floor entrance to the city of San Diego’s Development Services Department, around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 23, David Blair joined a long line of would-be marijuana entrepreneurs. Other people had been queued up for days in anticipation of the city issuing it’s first-ever permits for operating medical-marijuana dispensaries. Read More

"The notion that medical marijuana patients are drug addicts is ignorant, insulting and flies in the face of much evidence to the contrary," Davidovich said. "That cannabis has a number of medicinal benefits for a number of serious conditions — with relief of symptoms like tremors, seizures and nausea — is simply no longer in dispute. What we need now is to ensure San Diego patients are able to go to well-regulated cooperatives for their medicine. Read More

Some seemingly strange political bedfellows are behind an independent expenditure committee backing attorney Robert Brewer for district attorney against incumbent Bonnie Dumanis. Calling itself “Public Safety Advocates," the group received $10,000 from the Alliance for Responsible Medicinal Access PAC, a pro–medical marijuana group, on April 25. Read More

A group of medical marijuana activists sued the city of San Diego this week to put a stop to recently passed regulations of dispensaries. The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court by the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, which calls itself a civil rights organization founded in 2007 in Los Angeles. Read More

The Alliance for Responsible Medicinal Access said in a statement that "San Diego's medical marijuana providers and patients are eager to see permitted cooperatives operating lawfully in the city, and while it's true the new ordinance is highly restrictive, this attempted end-run around our City Council through the courts will do nothing to improve access." Read More

Dozens of people showed up at San Diego City Hall early Thursday morning with piles of paperwork and high hopes of opening a medical marijuana dispensary. The City Council approved new rules in February allowing up to 36 collectives to operate in city limits four in each council district. Read More

As folks in the medical-cannabis industry line up for the first time to apply for permits to operate dispensaries in San Diego, officials are attempting to crack down on the dozens of illegal storefronts still open for business. Read More

Navajo Community Planners, Inc., listened for about an hour February 24 to discussion of the proposed medical-marijuana dispensary ordinance, but the board made no recommendation about the regulation on the San Diego City Council' s February 25 agenda. Read More

Medical marijuana will soon be sold legally in the city of San Diego. City council members on Tuesday approved new rules, allowing up to 30 dispensaries to operate within city limits —four in each council district. Read More

A path to legitimacy for medical marijuana dispensaries could be in the offing as the San Diego City Council takes a second swing Tuesday at implementing an ordinance that would allow those businesses to operate legally within the city. Read More

San Diego could pass Tuesday a new law regulating where and how dispensaries can operate in the city. Dispensaries today operate without permits, chancing that they won’t be caught by city code compliance. But if the new ordinance becomes law, a group of medical marijuana advocates and would-be dispensary operators are trying to legitimize their industry by creating a self-regulating body. Read More